


Dawn and the Messenger

by MalTease



Series: Game of Blame Series [3]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalTease/pseuds/MalTease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the Game of Blame Universe, three years after the epilogue. Peeta needs comfort, and it's his daughter who provides it with a surprising update from an unlikely messenger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dawn and the Messenger

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t let go of the Game of Blame universe, and a few days ago posted this drabble on my tumblr page. I went through it, edited it, and decided to share it on this site in case those of you who do not follow me might wish to have another peek at the GoB Mellarks.
> 
> This tiny story is set about 3 years after the Epilogue …

I couldn’t let go of the Game of Blame universe, and a few days ago posted this drabble on my tumblr page. I went through it, edited it, and decided to share it on this site in case those of you who do not follow me might wish to have another peek at the GoB Mellarks.

This tiny story is set about 3 years after the Epilogue …

After a long drive home, and an even longer day, I rush into our apartment building to my wife and daughter. I feel my tie tighten against my shirt collar as the reality of the situation finally starts to really sink in. I’ve been in shock since that damn morning , when I received the call that told me to rush to the hospital to see my father for one last time, while he lay in a coma after being victim of a hit and run. I was numb as Father Plutarch performed the Last Rites, in denial all through the funeral service and emotionless as we lowered the casket into the ground. I have not shed a tear yet, while my mother, my brothers, and even Katniss, wept openly on numerous occasions. 

Now, as I rush up the stairs, I feel my breath quickening, and a lump forms in my throat, immediately becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Katniss had caught a lift home with Delly a few hours ago, while my brothers and I stayed with our mother, settling her down to rest, and trying to comfort her in any way possible. But now it’s my eyes that finally fill with tears; I want my wife, I crave her embrace, her love and I need her to make the pain stop. As soon as I open the front door, my heart soars with relief at the familiar scene in front of me. Our combined kitchen and living room is not big, and it’s made even smaller by the strewn cushions and the general clutter that our three year old marshmallow seems to bring with her. However, it is this room that allows me to breathe again, and even though my tears flow freely, the pain of loss somehow seems to somehow subside. Katniss and Alba are lying on the carpet facing each other, their noses almost touching as they play an intricate game made of linked fingers, giggles and whispers while my _My Little Pony_ plays in the background. My wife has changed from her stiff, black dress into one of my t-shirts over a pair of flannel pigiama trousers. Her open smiles, in contrast with her still slightly puffed up eyes, can only be the result of the past hours spent in the company of our daughter, and how could it be otherwise? Since her birth, Alba has always been surrounded by an aura of brightness and plain joy that is impossible to resist. Even now, as I’m consumed by tiredness and grief, I can’t help the smile that takes over my face as I look at her. She’s wearing a pink pigiama onesie in the shape of a cat, with a tail and all, and I can’t get over how cute she looks. My baby, my sweet dawn. 

I move to the middle of the room and kneel down next to my two girls, engulfing them both in a big hug. I don’t want to let go, not even when my daughter starts giggling and squirming in my arms. Katniss, on the other hand, wraps her arms around my neck and whispers how much she loves me, and how I will get through this as well, and that she will be there for me. I respond with a long, tearful kiss, until Alba’s fidgeting is such that I have to finally release them both. I wipe my eyes quickly, and inhale a whiff of lavender when I brush my lips against my daughter’s forehead.

“Mmmmmm....bath?” I ask as she curls round her adored teddy bear and settles on a large cushion.

She nods happily and nearly hits me on the nose with her bear as she gesticulates wildly. “I had a bathie and lots of Snuggle Cuddles with Mom-mee!” she explains.

“Lucky Mommy,” I grin as I rise to my feet and pull Katniss up with me. We walk to the kitchen where once again my wife draws me into her embrace before untying my black tie and loosening my shirt collar. 

“How are you feeling, love?” she whispers worriedly. 

I grimace a little and run a hand through my hair. “Not so shell shocked anymore, I guess. Tired, unhappy. Lost?” I reply, with a low voice that I don’t really recognise as my own. 

Katniss smiles at me sadly. I know that she understands - she lost her own father when she was very young. “You know that you will be fine - we’ve been through the worst kind of loss... we’ll get through this together,” she tells me firmly punctuating her point with a soothing kiss.

“Like always,” I reply with a sad smile. “That’s we do, you and I. We get through things together.” My words are interrupted by a tiny, but determined, tug on my trousers. I look down to see Alba, with her little pink tail dangling down her bottom, staring up at me with large, worried, eyes. 

“Dah-dee? Are you sad?”

I cannot lie to my daughter, ever. “A little sad, yes, Sunrise,” I reply with my voice breaking just a jot.

Her bottom lip trembles and, forever clutching her teddy bear, she raises her arms to be lifted by me. Katniss tries to hold her hand and lead her back to the sofa. “Why don’t you continue watching _My Little Pony_ , baby?” she asks, but Alba squirms free and pouts. 

“No! Dah-dee is sad!” she cries, crossing her little arms stubbornly.

I exchange a look with Katniss and reach down for her. “Ok sweetpie, let’s tuck you in and get you some Snuggle Cuddles, shall we?” It’s easy to fawn on her, and I can’t bear to see her sweet face unhappy because of me any longer. 

I place her on her bed, covering her up in blankets and making sure that she is tucked in tightly and comfortably. She is strangely quiet and her little brow is furrowed with worry. 

“Would you like daddy to read you a bedtime story?” I ask as I reach out for her favourite story book.

She shakes her head, and sits up suddenly.

“Dah-dee, where does it hurt?” she asks.

I’m taken aback and find myself having to blink away a sudden rush of tears. “It hurts … here,” I reply, my voice low, as I point to my heart. 

She looks at me seriously before reaching up to first kiss my chest, and then my nose, whispering the word “better” after each one. “There. A Better-Better Kiss,” she explains with a wide smile. 

I love Better-Better Kisses. Giving them as much as receiving them. “Would you like one from daddy as well?”

She ponders the question gravely and extends her tiny finger towards me. “My finger hurts,” she tells me, even though there seems to be definitely nothing wrong with it. I smile and play along.

“There. Better -” I kiss her finger, and then her nose “ - and better.” She giggles happily when I smile at her, pleased with her attempts at cheering me up. 

“But Dah-dee, why are you sad?” she asks, as she lowers herself back on the pillow, her cat ears comically askew. 

I pause for a moment as my loss threatens to take over once more. It will have to wait until I’m in my wife’s arms. Not in front of my daughter. “Baby, Grandpa Mellark was my daddy, and he’s gone in a far off place, and I miss him a lot,” I explain softly. 

“Your Dah-dee?”

“That’s right.”

“But Grandpa Mellark is happy-happy now, Gabe-y told me!”

I smile at her indulgently. “Your teddy told you that Grandpa is happy-happy?”

She shakes her head earnestly. “Nooo, not Teddy Gabe-y, Angel Gabe-y!” she answers seriously. “He’s in a nice place. He told me yesterday.”

My mouth dries and I suddenly feel very uneasy. Alba does not fathom the idea of heaven yet, she’s far too young for me to have ever mentioned it to her, or at least I don’t remember having done so. However, what she says next truly shocks me.

“And there is Grandpapa Everdeen too! They are having so much fun Dah-dee, Gabe-y told me!”

I clear my throat and try to collect myself. Alba does not know about Katniss’ father, who died far before she was born. How can she be connecting him with my father, with Gabriel? “Love, does... Gabe-y speak to you often?” I whisper.

“Nooo. When I sleep.”

“How often?”

She doesn’t understand the question, and looks at me with a frown. She seems to sense that I’m wary so I pull her tight to me and just tell her that I love her. I don’t know if she is just having very vivid dreams, or if the possibilities that my faith always presented are actual reality; I decide that if she is telling me that my son is happy with his grandfathers, I won’t be the one to question it, but just take it all in with a sense of relief.

“Did Gabe-y tell you anything else?” I murmur as I cover her up for one last time. She yawns, her eyes heavy with sleep as she holds her teddy bear tight. 

“He said that he will see us all one day, but not for a very very very long time. And that Grandpa Mellark likes it there a lot.”

A weight is lifted from my heart. My dad likes it there. Well I’m glad. 

“Oh and Dah-dee?”

“Yes little one?”

“The baby Mom-mee has in her tummy is a boy.”

_Baby? What baby?_

But Alba is now fast asleep, so I have no choice but to leave it at that. As I enter the living room, Katniss looks up at me from the sofa with a small smile. 

“You look better,” she comments.

“I am, at least I think so,” I reply, still a little dazed.

“What did she do to cheer you up?”

_Well...she told me that she speaks to our son in heaven...she assured me that my father and yours are happy and taking care of him...she hinted that we will all have a long life … and that you are pregnant with a boy._

I throw myself on the sofa, and put my stockinged feet on the coffee table. I kiss her gently and rest my forehead against hers as I take everything in before speaking up. “Love, just for curiosity’s sake, how open minded are you feeling tonight?”


End file.
